With the arrival of the twenty-first century, everything around us has been transforming at light speed. The progress in every field is astounding. With every nation striving hard to build a fantastic economy, the founders of digital currency exchanges are raising a toast.
The digital currency has shown a whole new side of a financial system. It is not only for transferring assets but cryptocurrency provides a huge opportunity for investment. The value of crypto assets has been increasing with every passing day. And, speaking of digital currency the companies transferring and trading with such assets are becoming billionaires.
Kraken is one such digital currency company based in San Francisco, California. In July 2011, Jesse Powell established the company.
Jesse Powell
Jesse Powell completed his education from California State University-Sacramento. He is a well-known entrepreneur who did more than just founding Kraken.
His entrepreneurial life started with co-founding Lewt, Inc in 2001. In July 2006, he co-founded Internet Ventures & Holdings and also served as the CEO. He founded Verge Gallery and Studio Project in June 2007. This start-up of Jesse gave a lot of opportunities to the potential artists out there. It ale became Sacramento’s largest commercial fine arts gallery.
Jesse seems to have a soft corner for arts. In April 2010, he co-founded Verge Center for the Arts and after a year he co-founded Kraken.
The Beginning
Mt. Gox was the world’s largest bitcoin exchange. In 2010, Jed McCaleb founded the company. It was just a year before Kraken came up. But, who knew that the world’s leading digital currency platform would go out of business within four years.
In 2011, when Jesse started working on Kraken he suspected the downfall of the company. And, it happened in 2014. A company that carried out 70% of the world’s bitcoin transaction suddenly went bankrupt. Today, the company is still struggling hard to get back on track.
This was the golden hour for Kraken. Jesse worked on his company for two long years. And, after several tests and developments, Jesse launched Kraken in September 2013. The platform initially allowed exchange via bitcoin, Litecoin and euro trades.
Jaw-dropping Success
In July 2013, Kraken became a part of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority (DATA). The company’s trade began escalating since the very year of its launching. It came into a partnership with Fidor bank.
The company’s funding started in 2014 with a massive amount of $5 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by Hummingbird Ventures. Just a year after its formation, Kraken became the first-ever digital currency exchange to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal.
In May 2015, Kraken launched the beta version of margin trading and later that year it opened the dark pool.
Expansion
In 2016, Kraken expanded its service to thirty-seven other states of the U.S. and all Canadian residents. In the same year, Kraken came into a joint venture with SynpasePay and Vogogo. Kraken completed its Series B funding this year. SBI Investment led the investment round.
Kraken acquired CleverCoin and Glidera in the same year. 2016 proved to be a very vital year of Kraken. Though it expanded gigantically the alleged crimes pulled down its face value.
The Turmoil
In July 2016, news spread out through media about the stolen funds of Kraken. Tension grew among customers when they heard accounts were compromised as well. The investigation went on for one long month. And, finally, the FBI informed that Kraken was safe and no such attack took place.
It took time for Kraken to build up the reputation. Because no matter a company has been under serious threats or attacks, once the word goes out it tends to fall apart.
Present Day
It is a platform that allows both the exchange of digital currency and exchange between digital currencies and normal currency like USD.
In March 2017, they acquired both Cryptowatch and its founder. Kraken also witnessed 50,000 new users signing up every day.
In April 2018, Kraken put an end to its business in Japan. The company announced that after four years of doing business in Japan suddenly the expenses started rising and they have to cease the business.
In February 2019, company received $100 million at a valuation of $4 billion. Though the company is making pocket-full for itself investigation continues.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more